


Though The Truth May Vary

by Noiros (pistachiosoda)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, F/F, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-23 10:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3764302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pistachiosoda/pseuds/Noiros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To put it simply, Peridot hated Lapis Lazuli and everything she stood for. As if to reciprocate, Lapis Lazuli despised Peridot with every fiber of her being. Yet the time was cruel enough to bind them together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Though The Truth May Vary

Peridot sighed.

Walking to school everyday was a bore. Nothing ever changed, and everything played out exactly as it did yesterday, and then the day before yesterday. Save for the occasional adrenaline rushes that came with being late for school, everything was the same.

The sun peaked from the rooftops, showering down bright light as it rose, only ceasing when tree leaves blocked it. A part-time employee quietly grumbled as he opened up the donut store, shuffling back inside as if to hide from everything else. The occasional gust of wind was messing up her hair but she made no attempt to fix it. And if she closed her eyes she could hear a distant sound of waves hitting the sand and rolling back out.

Beach City was waking up and Peridot was walking to school.

She had put her Walkman on repeat, cycling through one playlist only. She had heard these songs if not once, but hundred of times before, but somehow they still fit. They were mostly remixes of songs she had heard on the radio, and sometimes originals from bands she liked. This was something she would never show to anyone, so they are reserved to quiet moments like these.

Peridot mused. Sameness was good. You never get caught off-guard by sameness. Even when everything was a bore, she greatly preferred that. Why have a “change of pace” when you can be grounded forever?

Her steps slowly became in-sync with the music, following the beat of the song. On a whim, her eyes rose in a direction she hadn’t found herself noticing before. Peridot’s breath hitched. Stretching out upon the walls on the back of the old theater in town, there was a graffiti. As the song switched to its catchy chorus, Peridot found herself slightly entranced by the sight.

Sprayed neatly on the molting surface of the wall in bright blue paint was the sentence “Why would I die when I’m already in hell?” The paint didn’t glisten nor form new drops so the words probably had been there for a while.

When? She couldn’t recall the last time she laid eyes on the wall, as it was disgusting to even think about. Peridot wanted to trace her fingers along the writing, yet refrained, not wanting to get the prosthetics dirty.

Who? Beach City was a quiet town, despite the “city” label. Although there are upstarts here and there, she couldn’t think of a single person who would turn to vandalism. Destruction of community objects and disregarding authority, maybe, but vandalism, probably not. And the biggest question would be why a simple line drawn on the theater walls resonated with her so much.

The slow music faded out, before snapping back with a rock song, bringing the teenager back to reality.

* * *

“Peridot. Mor’n.”

She received across the back out of nowhere. There was no need to turn around to know whose the roughhousing was from, so she didn’t pull her eyes from her work.

“Jasper.”

As if prompted, Jasper dropped her football helmet onto the table with a loud thud.

A quick look to her watch showed that it had been 30 minutes since class started, yet she only bothered to show up now. Though it was the last period of the day, so it was slightly more understandable, even Peridot wanted to skip. Yet she could have just not showed up at all, instead of showing up halfway, halfway was much worse.

She was indeed living up to the name of ‘shittiest lab partner’. The teacher was yelling at both of them, but Peridot blocked out the unnecessary noises.

She didn’t understand how her not-really-friendship with Jasper started to begin with, but it was after she enrolled in high school. That day, she swallowed up her nervousness and had an argument with the upperclassmen. She couldn’t recall what it was about; the argument was just that petty.

The next day, Jasper approached her. She was overwhelming with all her over six feet height, angry face and bleached white hair. Peridot thought she came to pick on her since the Jasper towered over her, to shove her inside the lockers like those typical teenage girl movies, but somehow that didn’t happen.

They sat down and bitched about life together, which made for a great icebreaker.

She could feel Jasper falling down onto the bench next to her, shifting around to get herself comfortable. Peridot sarcastically wished she had braced for impact beforehand.

Scratching her head, Jasper quietly stared at her for a few milliseconds before raising her voice again, now in a more annoyed tone.

“Drop that damn thing, it’s Chem period. Not Build-A-Robot.”

“Fuck off, Jasper.” Peridot grumbled back in a quieter voice. “I’m not doing the stupid reaction for you. About time you contributed a little for society.”

Jasper laughed and started to slam the table during the fit, shaking the racks of test tubes in the process. She always took comebacks from Peridot as if they were the funniest things in the whole world, not that she minded. Laughing Jasper equals distracted Jasper, which also equals more quality time working on the robot chip of hers.

As a proud member of the non-existent robotics club, she felt like it was her duty to do something worthwhile, also partly because it would look beautiful on her school records. At the end, she was too winded up in her own little world to notice Jasper asking the teacher about the experiment.

“Hey dumbass. Reaction’s worth 50% the grade.”

“What?!”

Peridot quickly dropped her chip, and went scrambling to take a hold of the test tubes as Jasper watched in amusement. Fuck that asshole. She really knew how to strike fear in the heart of her enemies and Peridot hated that.

* * *

Sweeping her belongings inside her backpack, Peridot made a hasty exit from the classroom. Jasper was tailing her now, and she knew that she couldn’t outrun her. So might as well make a head start now or never.

“Did the B- mess with your head to the point you are ditching my game?” Jasper’s voice rang out from behind her. “That’s pretty fuckin’ low.”

“You tell me low. Remind me who ditched the science fair last month?” She yelled back, still walking away as fast as she can.

Two steps. It took Jasper two steps to get in front of her, stopping her dead in her track. Peridot wished it wasn’t so easy to catch up on her.

“I had family business.” Jasper growled through gritted teeth. “So, not low.”

Peridot shrunk back a little, looking away but still kept her stance. She did vaguely recall Jasper’s little sister – Ame-something – got into trouble and was hurt. Still, the science fair was important to Peridot. She felt like she made a breakthrough with her repair robot, not that it mattered now. A simple ‘sry 4 not going’ text wouldn’t patch things up for her, if any at all.

Peridot was too prideful a person to see anything clearly and always mixed up feelings with facts to begin with.

“I’m still not going.” She hissed.

Shoving Jasper out of the way, she made a beeline towards the exit, past the crowd of people. Part of her wondered if she should have stayed back there and yelled at Jasper a little bit more, then she wouldn’t be caught in the after school rush. Peridot decided against it and shoved the thought to the back of her head. It wasn’t good to get overly familiar to begin with, and long conversations wouldn’t help her case.

As if it was a punishment for her spacing out, Peridot bumped into another person pushing through in the opposite direction as her, their pile of textbooks dropping to the floor.

“Shit—“ Peridot paused, waiting for some verbal lashing out, though there weren’t any. Maybe she had been hanging around Jasper for too long.

She looked up to examine the unfortunate soul that she bumped into only to receive a swift kick in her left leg’s shin. Nothing could have prepared her for the pain just then, not even Jasper. Peridot released a string of curses as she fell knees-first to the ground, almost completely immobilized.

“Motherfuck—“

Peridot glared at the perpetrator, only to be greeted with an equally intense stare. It was a girl she had never seen around here before. Her attitude certainly matched her ruffled up dyed blue hair, yet seemed to be a far cry from the simple white sundress.

The girl crouched down to pick up the books, and spoke curtly when on the same eye level as her.

“That was for not apologizing.” Her voice was monotonous, almost tired.

And at that moment, Peridot was speechless. She couldn’t comprehend how much she despised this stranger.

“Who the fuck... Who the fuck do you think you are?”

She was completely ignored, much to her chagrin. The girl simply stood up and walked away as if nothing had happened.

Peridot was still on the ground minutes after, wondering what did she do to receive so much karma in one day. First, she fucked up the Chemistry experiment, getting a B- out of everything, and now she had to deal with that asshole. Her backpack quickly became her replacement victim as she threw incoherent curses and punched at it for being around.

Peridot almost pitied herself for a second.

When she finally gained her bearings and calmed down just enough, she noticed that there was barely anyone left around; the crowd of people had somehow dissolved and left the hallways a long time ago. And somehow she failed to notice that hundreds of students walked by while sitting on the floor for three minutes.

Usually the students would loiter around for much more, Peridot thought absently, or was it because of the football match?

“Fuck.”

Peridot could feel the curiosity inside her rising. Reluctantly standing up, she dragged herself towards the grass field, dirtied backpack slung over shoulder. If leaving the school meant having to deal with these kind of people, she’d choose standing for hours watching dumb sweaty jocks any day.


End file.
